


The Battle to the Strong

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, Drama, First Times, M/M, Series: Penny Prophet, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 01:19:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/792377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When outside forces tear you apart, you must search for interior truths.<br/>This story is a sequel to Uncommon Strength.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Battle to the Strong

**Author's Note:**

> Though this is not a death story, it does involve lots of angst. This is part of a series, and you'll be horribly lost if you don't read the other fics before this one.

## The Battle to the Strong

by palthanas

Author's webpage: <http://www.geocities.com/ityliana>

Author's disclaimer: I disclaim.

* * *

I'm dying. 

I kept trying to think those words, as if somehow thinking them over and over again would make them seem more real to me, as if everything was not happening to someone else. 

I'm dying. I, Blair Sandburg, am dying. 

It's funny, but no matter how many times I made myself think it, no matter how many times I tried to realize that there wasn't anything left to me but a few months or less of pain and hospitals and struggling to make it each day, I couldn't make it real to me. It was as if everything was happening to someone else, and I was just watching like I always do, taking notes and feeling pity, but not getting involved. 

An Anthropologist to the core. 

Even Jim's carefully controlled grief wasn't enough to snap me into the truth of it. If anything, the deep lines between his brows and around his mouth merely fed my delusion-- if Jim had cried or yelled or done anything out of character, then I may have been forced to admit that yes, things were changing, and no, the changes weren't too good. But his stoic, strong silence and presence were so typical, his repression of pain so very _Jim_ that everything seemed to be Business As Usual. 

Which, of course, it wasn't. Nothing was the same. Each day was a little worse than the next, and I could feel the fear mounting with each indrawn breath, stepping just out of my line of sight. Yet through it all, I had my mantra, my verse that I repeated as if it were a talisman against harm: 

I'm going to die. 

I'm going to die. 

I'm going to... 

* * *

If there was sunlight somewhere out there, it couldn't reach him now. Instead, there was the cool darkness, tinged blue and fading about the edges, as if he were a character on an old, old page, bleaching pale quietly with time. 

There was no wind to ruffle the jungle vegetation, and the silence was complete, stretching over each broad leaf and stem and hushing the step of his bare feet as he walked through the thick underbrush. He couldn't be sure where he was heading, but he knew that he had to keep moving. He couldn't stop to rest in the shadows, even though he was so tired... 

He'd never felt so tired. 

//Just a couple of steps more. Just a couple of steps.// His own thoughts, trapped within his brain, took on a voice of their own, echoing loudly throughout the empty jungle. He could hear them as clearly as if they had been spoken, only the voice wasn't his. It was too weak and too wavering to really belong to him. 

It was the voice of someone old or very, very ill. 

//Just a couple more steps and then you can lie down. A couple more and then you can sleep, and the penny prophets will sell their comfort. A couple more.// 

He wasn't surprised when he sensed a presence beside him. It was as if the wolf's heat against his calf was natural; he couldn't recall it ever not being there, as if the wild creature were a part of him. //Not chance.// The tips of his fingers brushed against the soft gray and white fur as he walked, sending small currents of sensation through his numb fingertips. //When your body is gone, how long before the rest follows?// 

He turned with the wolf naturally, not needing the soft nudges of animal flesh against his own. This was fate, not chance-- a decree, set in stone. 

There was something he must see. 

Stooping down close to the jungle floor, he pressed against a thick tangle of vegetation, arms shoving it aside as he squirmed through the small passageway. You couldn't be blind forever; one day you had to open your eyes and see. Open your eyes... and see. The blue-tinged green leaves brushed against his body, catching on the paper-thin cotton of his hospital gown, smearing the pale whiteness of his thin arms and legs with faintly glowing chlorophyll. Shadowed eyes shut tight against harm, he burrowed through the thick wall of greenery, fingers digging into the earth as he searched blindly for the opening, knowing that he must reach this place even though he couldn't understand where he was going or why. 

Finally, his upper body broke out through the tunnel within the underbrush, and he pulled himself out of the tight opening, squirming like a child fresh from the uterus, eyes wide and face covered with the slick moisture of the jungle. 

Before him was a pool, isolated within the small enclosure of green, shining blue and dancing white. 

//So this is where the color breaths// he thought as he pulled himself towards the cache of water, moving on his stomach as if he were a supplicant before a royal throne. His face shone back at him, distorted by the rippling water, and he leaned closer and waited, mouth falling open slightly as he grasped handfuls of dirt and grass within his hands. 

The image cleared, radiating calm outwards, and he stared at himself in un-comprehension, blue eyes darting over the image. 

A large building. 

A fountain. 

A still body, being drug from its depths. Deep sorrow and regret as a mouth touched his, pushing air back into lungs that no longer needed to breath. 

A wolf and a jaguar, leaping towards one another. 

//He saved me.// 

Then the image shifted, inverting, until he was looking at his own reflection, blue eyes meeting blue eyes. He blinked in shock and the mirror-Blair linked back at him, hands raising in unison as he touched his thin, sallow cheeks. Deep bruises purpled his arms and beneath his eyes, and a flimsy plastic circlet hung about his thin wrist as he raised his hand to his head, marveling with the mirror-Blair at the smooth scalp where dark curls should be. 

//No,// the feeble mind-voice whispered. //No. No.// 

//He saved me.// 

I shouldn't have been saved. 

//He brought me back.// 

It was my turn to die. 

//I will fight this.// 

I have no strength left to give. 

//Jim...// 

Jim... 

I need... //I need Jim.// 

Somewhere behind him, a wolf whimpered, low and pained, as Blair stared at the emaciated figure that _was_ _not_ him. It _could_ _not_ be him. 

It could not... 

//I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die..// 

* * *

"Chief. Come on, Chief, wake up." 

Blair gasped awake with a jerk, his body tensing against the adrenaline that shook through his veins. Arms were holding onto him, wrapped tight around his shoulders and chest as his body trembled in residual fright. "Jim," he gasped softly, relief washing over him. "Oh, man, I thought... Was a dream. It was a dream." 

"It looked like a bad one, too, from where I was sitting," his partner commented gruffly as he squeezed the younger man's shoulders one last time before moving away. His features were composed in the typical James Ellison expression, with the exception of the now-constant furrow between his brows. "You, uh, want to talk about it Chief?" 

Blair shook his head as he sat up against his pillows, relief spilling over him at the feel of his long curls brushing his cheeks. //Only a dream.// "It's not important, Jim. Just a run-of-the-mill nightmare, patented from childhood." 

"Typical Sandburg mania?" 

He laughed lightly in response, pressure loosening on his heart at the smile he received in return. It wasn't a beaming "who-needs-the-sun-when-you've-got-this-smile" James Ellison grin, but it was something, and knowing that his Sentinel could smile with him even now made Blair want to leap out from his uncomfortable hospital bed and dance. 

Except that he would still be connected to the damn bed through all the wires. 

"So, what exciting an... anti... So what did I miss while I was impersonating Sleeping Beauty?" He played off his inability to remember the word clumsily, but Jim didn't comment. 

"Well, Simon bellowed at the Doctor for a good fifteen minutes." 

"About?" 

"He wants tighter security around this wing of the hospital." 

Blair's brows shot up in surprise. "Jim! Man, what do we need security for? This is a _hospital_." 

The older man shook his head bemusedly. "He seems to think that since _he_ was almost killed in a hospital, _you're_ at the same risk." A brown brow rose. "And you've got to admit, Chief, you do have a talent for getting into trouble." 

"Not that any of that's my fault." 

"Finally, he contented himself with personal guard service during visiting hours and frequent security team checkups during the night." 

"Personal guard service? You mean that Simon's going to be outside of my door all day?" He shook his head bemusedly, a small smile tugging at his lips. Talking with Jim, just being normal again, had made the nightmare fade away as if it had never been. Jim had always had that affect on him, his presence soothing even in the worst of circumstances. 

"No, but he has the combined might of Major Crimes backing him up." 

"Oh, so _Megan_ will be standing guard duty." 

"Smart boy." 

Then there was silence, and Blair lay back against his pillows and thought about the long hours that he had spent already in the white, lifeless room, wading through test after test so that he could finally go home. 

All he wanted was to go home. 

"Jim," he began, just as his partner said "Blair..." 

They laughed together, and Jim nodded for him to speak. 

"Jim, when do I get my papers? When do I get to go home, man? I don't... I don't like it here." 

Pain blanched across his partner's features for a moment, and Blair wished that he had not spoken, knowing that Jim would take the blame upon himself like he always did. "I don't know, Blair-- the doctors want to keep you a bit longer to run some tests..." 

"Well, screw their tests! I want out of here, Jim. I want to... to... shit!" He shut his eyes tight against the wall within his own brain, frustration mounting as the words left him. //I used to be a master of words. What's happening to me?// 

"It's... Blair..." The older man hovered above him, face twisted as he looked down at his Guide, hands hovering to touch the shaking body, but not quite daring. "I'll go talk to the doctor, Blair." The smaller man didn't open his eyes or acknowledge him, but Jim didn't wait for confirmation before he turned and almost fled from the room, hands clenched into fists and mouth set into a grim line. 

What good, he wondered as he searched for answers, was a man with five heightened senses when he couldn't even use them to save someone he loved? 

Someone he loved... 

* * *

Alone within his single hospital room, Blair shut his eyes tight and willed away the confusion that rose up within him. It was if the world was spinning madly on its end, and he was the last one left standing still... Colors, sounds, noises-- everything was twisted out of shape and molded into some crazy new form. 

Down the rabbit hole... 

"Oh, man," he gasped, choking back a laugh at the sudden image of him as Alice and Jim as the eternally late white rabbit. "I'm late; I'm late..." I'mlateI'mlateI'mlate. 

"This sucks," Blair informed the regularly beeping machine next to him. "This really and truly sucks." 

There was no reply. 

Shaking his head disgustedly-- he hadn't _really_ expected the machine to answer him back, right?-- Blair forcefully turned his mind away from thoughts of death. There would be plenty of time to think about that later if it was necessary. For now, all he could do was wait and see the results of the tests. Then he would worry. 

"But not now," he muttered as he once again drifted off into light sleep, body loosening and losing its tension as the first waves a darkness fell upon him. "Later..." 

* * *

If there was sunlight somewhere out there, it couldn't reach him now. Instead, there was the cool darkness, tinged blue and fading about the edges, as if he were a character on an old, old page, bleaching pale quietly with time... 

* * *

Author's Note: I know that this is short, but I haven't been able to work on this for quite some time for personal reasons. Think of this as a vignette within the series as I work on a more plot-centric chapter. The series Penny Prophet is almost over, but after I take a small break for research, I will begin the series sequel entitled Echo of Angels. To keep from having long waits in between stories like what happened this time, I will be posting the smaller segments to my own web page and not to the main Sentinel archive until the entire thing is finished. I will, however, be posting update notices on the mailing list, or if anyone's interested, I am part of a fanfic archives update group. Thanks so much for everyone who asked after this, and I again apologize for the long wait. 

* * *

End

 


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